Exploring THE Spiritual Art (For Your Closure)
Why did I begin the Free to be Show?
What makes you feel that are not free to exist?
For the final episode of my podcast, I am speaking freely about the most normalized form of narcissistic abuse and how you alchemize it.
When you experience narcissistic abuse your personality splits into your authentic self and your representative, your mask. It is clinically called Dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously known as multiple personality disorder, is a complex psychological condition caused by many things. These include severe trauma during early childhood (usually extreme, repetitive physical, sexual, or emotional abuse). It's also known as split personality disorder. Reference
Interestingly there exists a normalized version of this that may lead to a mental health issue over time for BIPOC in general but especially Black women. The first capture of this phenomenon was in the 1903 book, “The Souls of Black Folk,” written by the late civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois spoke about Black people surviving by highlighting the need for Black Americans to recognize their double-consciousness, or the two parts of their identity: their Blackness and their “Americanness” — or how they were viewed by white Americans. DuBois talked about double-consciousness, and that’s what code-switching is now,” Dr. Barlow adds. “You had to, for your survival, exhibit that double-consciousness.” Reference Jodi Ann Burrey talks about showing up as your “authentic self” at work as a Black woman is the same as not wearing a custom to a Halloween party in her TED talk The Myth of bringing your full authentic self to work.
This is the beginning of generational trauma or taught imposter syndrome. Because you are always proving to the world that you are someone you are not. And I say all of this to say that the greatest form of narcissistic abuse that occurs is institutionalized racism. Although the “official” dots have not been connected in the American Psychological Association publication created on September 1, 2021 and last updated January 24, 2023 Psychologists are working to develop more effective ways of promoting Black men’s mental health
“Being a black man in America means being my brother’s keeper. Being a black man in America means being my brother’s keeper while keeping a distance from my brother because I don’t trust him further than I can see him. It’s believing the cops don’t care about you. It’s learning how not to doubt yourself because when you’re born everyone else already does.”
—Poet Prentice Powell, written following the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014
“We should place less emphasis on whether Black men are resistant to therapy,” said Stevenson, “and more on understanding the contexts in which they already feel comfortable talking about their feelings and traumas. If a Black man is able to find a treatment that is culturally responsive, that he understands, and that embraces the uniqueness of his difference, he is more likely to use that service.”
And my work is to heal the souls of Black women because they are the pillars of society, the Black crumbling family. As you can see it is a cellular recalibration that has to...
